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E-book
Author Isern, Thomas D. (Thomas Dean), 1952-

Title Bull threshers and bindlestiffs : harvesting and threshing on the North American plains / Thomas D. Isern
Published Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas, ©1990

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 248 pages) : illustrations
Series Book collections on Project MUSE
Summary Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a panorama on a continental canvas: the Great Plains of North America, stretching from Texas to Alberta. Onto this surface the author lays the large features of regional practice in the harvesting and threshing of wheat during the days before the combined harvester--harvesting with binder and header, threshing with bull thresher and steam engine. Into the picture he places the key figures who accomplished the task of gathering the grain--the farm men and women, the custom threshermen, and the bindlestiffs, or itinerant laborers. Affectionately he sketches the small details of folklife that comprised the everyday work and culture of the wheat belt--building shocks, loading racks, constructing stacks, pitching bundles into the separator, hauling water to the engine, drinking deep from the crockery water jug.Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs is a profusely illustrated study of a complex, vigorous regional culture concerned with the production of wheat--a culture that centered around the annual harvest and declined with the advent of the combine. This is an examination of the interaction of culture, environment, and technology with import for the fields of agricultural history and regional history. More than that, with its grassroots research, its descriptions of tools and customs, and its lavish illustrations, it is a recreation of a proud phase of regional life previously captured only in yellowed albumen photographs
Analysis History of the Americas
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-243)
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
Print version record
digitized 2014 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Grain -- Harvesting -- Technological innovations -- Great Plains -- History
Threshing -- Technological innovations -- Great Plains -- History
Grain -- Harvesting -- Machinery -- Great Plains -- History
Threshing machines -- Great Plains -- History
Farm life -- Great Plains
Harvesting machinery -- Great Plains -- History
Agricultural laborers -- Great Plains -- History -- 20th century
HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)
Harvesting machinery
Agricultural laborers
Farm life
Grain -- Harvesting -- Machinery
Threshing machines
Great Plains
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 90011967
ISBN 9780700631018
0700631011